I have no interest in wearing a VR headset myself, but the tracking and independent aiming do convey a fine sense of physicality, even just watching someone else play. This isn't the only way to play Half-Life 2 with Oculus Rift, mind, as the open-source Vireio Perception also supports it and several other older games but lacks the fancy tailored touches. When the Oculus Rift APIs launch, Andrews will hook those into the mod. You can also use control it any old regular way, though he recommends an Xbox 360 controller over mouse and keyboard "because analog movement is an absolute must for a good experience with head tracking." Firing is entirely independent from where Gordon's looking, as you can clearly see later in the demo video. You’ll need to right click them and select Properties -> Set Launch Options and add -vr -novid to the textbox ( -novid kills the startup video that isn’t rendered in stereo and can be really disorienting). It also removes any head-jerking effects, like when shooting or hit by a shock baton, presumably because if your head snaps back in the game it also kicks back in real life and snaps your neck.Ĭreator Nathan Andrews himself controls the gun with a Top Shot Elite, a plastic gun controller which came with the Cabela's Dangerous Hunts games, with a tracker taped on top. After the install, if you restart steam you’ll have Half-Life VR and Half-Life VR: Episode One in your steam library. The HUD is split into individual elements which fade in and out when relevant, and you can manually lower Gordon's gun so it's not always in your face. It's not as simple as adding tracking, oh no, as HL2 must be tweaked to better suit having the display fill your entire vision.
If you have some VR kit of your own, you can download it right now and get playing.
Able to track the player's head and any plastic weaponry they may be holding, the mod looks jolly impressive in a new video. The modders behind the project want to make it as easy as possible for fans to play the game in VR, so they are starting a Steam Greenlight campaign that is intended to make the mod available via Valve’s marketplace.With the Oculus Rift getting people all hot and bothered about virtual reality once again, one canny modder has prepared for its launch by whipping up a VR mod for Half-Life 2 and its episodes. The two episodes are not currently playable in VR mode, they are simply required for installation but the team hopes to add support sometime in the future. Half-Life 2: VR will be released for free, although players will need to own Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2 to play it. 357 revolver requires players to tilt the weapon to discharge spent cartridges, before flicking it back into place. There are even brand new reload gestures, according to a report from Road to VR. In the original Half-Life 2, weapons were basic models that looked the same whenever they were put in the hands of the player character, Gordon Freeman - in Half-Life 2: VR, they are remodeled so that players can move them around and view them from any angle, adding to the sense of immersion. However, those are not the only improvements the team has made. The game looks great, with HDR lighting, and updates to effects, models, textures, and maps having been applied. The new version, dubbed Half-Life 2: VR, is packing several enticing features.
Unfortunately, that mod is currently only playable using older development kit headsets but members of the original team have been hard at work bringing it up to date. Now, a fan project is set to make Valve’s critically lauded sequel playable in virtual reality on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.īack when the current VR boom was just getting started, a talented team put together HLVR, a mod that allowed players to experience Half-Life 2 like never before using an Oculus Rift DK1 headset and a Razer Hydra motion controller. When the game launched in 2004, Half-Life 2 was widely heralded as one of the most immersive first-person shooters around.